WASHINGTON TALK: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

WASHINGTON TALK: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT; Within the Turbulence, Currents and Undertows

By STUART TAYLOR Jr., Special to the New York Times

Published: April 4, 1988

WASHINGTON, April 3—
When the Justice Department plunged into crisis last week, the scenes played out on television screens, in news conferences and blandly ambiguous official statements, sketched only the dim outlines of a far more complex drama.

Behind closed doors unfolded a series of tense meetings amid crosscurrents of devotion to principle and concern for appearances, professional frustrations and ambition, personal friendship and animosity.

The first public word of the crisis came Tuesday morning, with the announcement of that Deputy Attorney General Arnold I. Burns, the department's second-ranking official, and Assistant Attorney General William F. Weld, head of the Criminal Division, had abruptly quit along with four of their top aides, giving no reason in their letters of resignation.

With the department's third-ranking official, Associate Attorney General Stephen S. Trott, newly confirmed to be a Federal appellate judge in California, these departures would leave a huge gap in the department. Glimpses and Half-Truths

The news grabbed the attention of official Washington like a thunderclap breaking into a sunny spring day.

But, as is often the case in official Washington, the public will get only glimpses into this behind-the-scenes drama, a patchwork of half-truths, rumors and speculations, leaked by insiders seeking to get their side of the story out without leaving ''fingerprints'' or willing to share what they know while keeping their heads down.

Nobody believed the suggestions by Administration spokesmen that these were just normal comings and goings - not with Attorney General Edwin Meese 3d under investigation by an independent prosecutor and battered by allegations of impropriety.

Within hours, anonymous officials let out a fuller version of the facts: Mr. Burns and Mr. Weld had resigned out of concern that Mr. Meese's legal problems and leadership were harming the image and work of the department. They had done so after a series of fruitless discussions with the White House, apparently in an effort to pressure Mr. Meese to resign.

Most damaging of the leaks, Mr. Weld, who boasts a squeaky-clean reputation, was said to have told colleagues he thought the evidence against Mr. Meese might warrant an indictment.

These revelations, which many officials assumed had been disclosed with the acquiescence of Mr. Burns and Mr. Weld, still did not tell the whole story. A Question of Timing

The biggest question was unanswered: Why now? Allegations of impropriety on the part of Mr. Meese have proliferated for years. Was there some new ''smoking gun?''

Terry Eastland the department's Public Information Officer, recalled later: ''The resignations stunned most of us in the department and a normal reaction was to ask, what is it that one or both of these men know about the Attorney General's situation that's new that I don't know, but by the end of the day Tuesday it became clear that nothing new was known.''

Meanwhile, Meese loyalists sought to discredit what one called the ''traitors.''

''Ed Meese's legal troubles didn't have anything to do with these resignations,'' one lawyer asserted. ''It was a battle over who would get Steve Trott's job and who would get to pick him, all macho, I'm-in-command-here type of stuff.''

This lawyer said that Mr. Weld had lost a bid for Mr. Trott's job and that Mr. Burns had been out of sorts about being cut out of the selection process and some other key decisions.

Others scoffed at the idea that Mr. Weld wanted Mr. Trott's job. ''I don't think Weld wanted to be closer to Meese; he wanted to be gone from Meese,'' one said.

Mr. Trott's situation may have affected the timing of the resignations in another way, however. For months, Senate Democrats had held up his judicial nomination because of an unrelated dispute, which was finally cleared up the week before the Burns and Weld resignations.

Colleagues said that Mr. Trott felt that his friends, Mr. Weld and Mr. Burns, might have put off their resignations so that his confirmation would not be derailed by the resulting uproar.

Timing aside, one official said ''a lot of people have talked about Bill Weld's political ambitions, and think he wants to run for office in Massachusetts,'' where being a Republican is handicap enough without being indentified with Mr. Meese.

''Weld may have wanted to free himself of any so-called taint from being associated with Meese by leaving in some dramatic way,'' this official said, ''while getting that word out on the day he resigned may have served other ends, too.'' Fear That Fried Would Follow

After the first shock of the Burns and Weld resignations, speculation over whether they would produce a ''domino effect'' focused on Solicitor General Charles Fried.

After he got advance word Monday from Mr. Weld about the resignations, Mr. Fried agonized privately and publicly about what he should do, while distancing himself from Mr. Meese.

On Tuesday, Mr. Fried parried, but did not deny, rumors that he, too, would soon resign.

On Wednesday, he met privately with Mr. Meese and refused to comment in public while telling several people that he had advised Mr. Meese to resign.

Mr. Fried's advice to Mr. Meese leaked into print Friday morning. While refusing to confirm what he had said in their ''private conversation,'' he left many insiders with the impression that he was quite content to have his distance from Mr. Meese thus established in the public eye.

Reading from a statement, Mr. Fried told reporters Friday morning that he had decided to stay as long as ''I am able to lead the Office of the Solicitor General with integrity and effectiveness,'' and that ''I will not accept any other positions in the Department of Justice.''

It was a masterpiece of its genre, a cavalcade of ambiguities and unanswered questions.

What persuaded him to stay? reporters asked Mr. Fried. What did Mr. Meese's travails have to do with Mr. Fried's ability to lead his office ''with integrity and effectiveness?''

And why rule out other jobs in the department? To show his decision was not influenced by personal ambition? To avoid getting any closer to Mr. Meese in the chain of command?

Mr. Fried would not elaborate. Politely parring the questions with a broad smile and a hearty laugh, he looked rather pleased with the way everything had worked out.